Live A Vibrant Life Podcast with Life Coach Kelly Tibbitts

Book Week: Self Help

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In this episode, listen in on a conversation I had with my friend and business partner Ellen Mailhot,  inspired by Gabby Bernstein’s new book, Self Help. Gabby’s book uses the lens of the Internal Family Systems model and how it can be applied to self help outside of work with a professional. We discuss some interesting parallels & overlaps between the concepts from the book and the principles & tools underlying my coaching business.  Take a listen as we share personal insights & anecdotes on how powerful these basic tools & techniques can be in transforming and improving our lives and relationships. 


Main Points 

The Four Steps to self-alignment outlined in Self Help include: 

  • Self-Awareness
  • Curiosity
  • Compassionate Connection
  • Check-In


Self-Compassion Matters! It can be hard to treat ourselves with the same kindness we show to others. In addition to the four steps above, Gabby Bernstein uses 8 “C words” for a healthy self: calm, curious, clear, compassionate, confident, courageous, creative, and connected. What’s your top priority for aligned energy? 

Links 

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Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

This week I'm gonna be talking about Gabby Bernstein's new book Self-Help.

Welcome to the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I'm life coach Kelly Tibbitts, and each week I'll be here to encourage and equip you with the tools you need to grow in self-awareness and invest your best energy in your dreams and your purpose. I believe self-awareness changes everything. Let's get started.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I'm talking with Ellen Mailhot about Gabby Bernstein's new book Self-Help. Ellen, thank you for being here today.

Ellen Mailhot:

Hello. Thank you for.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Today we're gonna talk about internal family systems through the lens of Gabby Bernstein's book, Self-Help. She talks about different parts of us, and the part that we want to focus on the most today is this part that she calls, calls self. As a follower of Jesus, I would say that's the part of us made in the image of God. And we're doing the very best we can. We're thinking thoughts on repeat that we started thinking when we were four or five years old and we don't notice them and they're driving our behavior. She points out that there's parts of us that have been around forever. She calls them managers, firefighters, and exiles. And when I put that idea next to the Enneagram, I was amazed how your Enneagram path in stress and health. It could be described as the manager's, firefighters and exile. So I don't know how deep we'll get into that. We're starting with just her four step process, and again, I was so surprised how similar it is to the work we do on repeat in the live a Vibrant Life coaching program. I went to see Gabby in Boston and read the book. When I was talking about the insights that I was noticing with the information she's sharing from Internal Family Systems, specifically around the managers and the firefighters and the exile energy, I saw an overlap between what we share about the Enneagram and some of the big concepts she has. Gabor Mate calls it compassionate inquiry.

Ellen Mailhot:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And so I think that's what we're hoping when people hear a little bit about Gabby's book, maybe they could take away this idea of compassionate inquiry.

Ellen Mailhot:

towards yourself and each other, not just, you know, some people are compassionate to other people, but really mean to themselves.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Well, until I did the work, I think that was something that was kind of natural for me. I was able to give grace to everyone except for me.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I was incredibly hard on myself,

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

but that also led to like exhaustion and resentment. So it wasn't best.

Ellen Mailhot:

made me realize, wow, I would never be so mean to someone else as I am to myself.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And I only realized that because of a coaching program I was in and I think as a woman, and especially for me being brought up in the Evangelical Church where it was almost like your role on earth was to go and care for others and to put yourself last,

Ellen Mailhot:

own expense.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

oh, a hundred percent.

Ellen Mailhot:

it's, that's the difference. I, I feel like this, you don't have to do it at your own expense. There's a middle ground

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

There's nuance again. Another idea that you taught me. Her four steps, I'll say the four of them. Then we'll talk through each step and notice how it's something that we share in the group coaching program. She calls step one, self-awareness. Step two, curiosity. Step three, compassionate connection. And step four, check in. I would say step one, notice Notice what you're thinking and you're feeling. Notice what triggers you. Notice your emotional state. Notice your thoughts. Notice any physical sensations you're experiencing. And I just need to say, I never did that my whole life. I didn't notice.

Ellen Mailhot:

You did notice some things, right? Because you noticed your feelings

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I didn't notice my feelings

Ellen Mailhot:

Well, you, you're more connected to your feelings.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

now. Right.

Ellen Mailhot:

I'm all in the thinking center and I often don't notice the other, the physical or the, the emotional. The nuance of the notice, I love how you get into the detail using the Enneagram, with the centers of intelligence We tend to lean into one of the three and, and if you notice and pay attention, you have access to all three of them and takes a little practice, but you can get there.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

But I never noticed. So my first step into self-help development, whatever you want to call it was a book by Pete Scazzero Called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality.

Ellen Mailhot:

Love that book. Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And in it he asked us to evaluate different feelings we experience. Even though I'm an Enneagram two and I live in the Heart Center, I didn't allow myself to have the majority of the feelings and I never noticed them. I wouldn't notice I was tired or frustrated or sad or happy. I had no access to that information'cause I wasn't noticing.

Ellen Mailhot:

I make the error sometimes of noticing too much or like overthinking it. Right? So there's a, middle ground where, you know, notice with health and with curiosity, but not to the point where you're, you know, rinating.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Right,

Ellen Mailhot:

so, you know, yeah. Meet in the middle.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

What we're trying to say is take a few moments every day and notice. Whatever way works for you- some people, it's going for a walk and they get some mental clarity. Some people need a journal. Some people need to have a conversation with a friend. So her first step in the four step process is notice, and she calls that self-awareness. The next step she says is to be curious. We would describe that as noticing without judgment. When you start to judge yourself for why am I thinking this, or I can't believe I still feel that way, you're no longer holding space to be curious. Instead she offers questions like, Hmm, now that I notice that, what do I know? How long has this been around? What is it revealing to me? One of the best insights I discovered was the power of feelings, like anger. Anger allows us to notice that we had a boundary that's being crossed, and so instead of making it mean I'm a horrible person because I'm angry, I could notice I'm feeling angry and wonder what that is revealing to me.

Ellen Mailhot:

What a different question, right? What is my anger telling me? I.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Mm-hmm.

Ellen Mailhot:

Rather than, oh, this is a bad feeling. I need to pretend it's not there.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Right, right.

Ellen Mailhot:

need to, you know, so different and so helpful. Your anger is a red flag that something's going on and you stop to be curious and notice without all this layers of judgment on it, it can make a big difference.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I love Brene Brown's book, the Atlas of the Heart, because I think it really helps us give some nuance to the different feelings. When I first discovered the Feeling Wheel, I remember showing it to one of my daughters. There's lots of them on the internet just Google feelings Wheel. It starts with really simple things like happy, sad, angry, but then there's all this nuance and I think in general, anger itself is a very good feeling telling you something important. I think what we have to be aware of is when it moves over to rage. Rage no longer values the other, so noticing without judgment, staying in curious energy, that's a really difficult step. Even though these are simple steps, they're not necessarily easy.

Ellen Mailhot:

Well, and they're not habits, so you have to take the time to, to practice it enough to have it become a habit. But you can't really do the next step unless you've mastered it, but it's not as hard, do it till it's not as hard anymore

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

do you think a lot of us have a neural pathway where we notice with judgment.

Ellen Mailhot:

Mm-hmm. Absolutely.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

So noticing without judgment might be something very new. So noticing might be new and noticing without judgment might be new.

Ellen Mailhot:

yep. Yep.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And so here's some good questions. Like, Hey, I'm noticing my stomach feels kind of sick. I wish I knew this one. I was younger. Or at least when my kids were younger,

Ellen Mailhot:

No kidding. No kidding.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

like, what might your body be telling you?

Ellen Mailhot:

Nobody made that connection at all. There's so much evidence. There's physical symptoms are red flags about your emotions a lot of times. paying attention is the only way you can learn that.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I just think until probably quite recently, people didn't even have access easily to these tools.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

That's why I love that she's taking internal family systems. Noticing, Hey, you can do this four step on your own and help yourself. And you can even, I think with the help of the Enneagram, notice the energy of your managers and firefighters. And then noticing without judgment. Then the third step is compassionate connection. Gabor Mate might say compassionate inquiry, and we would talk about connecting to your feelings. What I love is she really is trying to say, these are things you can do a few minutes at a time. Use a curious, non-judgmental energy as we're noticing, not judging ourselves or others, and then connecting to our feelings. Oh, how interesting. I'm feeling anger or sadness or joy. For me, that was just as hard as noticing sadness and frustration. It was hard for me to notice joy. I had suppressed everything to very neutral energy, and so when you notice the feeling to say, Hey, what do I need? And,

Ellen Mailhot:

neutral can feel safe. Safe, but miss out on the good as well as the bad. Like we were supposed to experience the full range,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and I do think they go together.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yes.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

So we're noticing, we're noticing without judgment, we're staying connected to our feelings. And then the last thing is to assess, okay, now that I've checked in. Do I feel a little more calm or connected, or do I have some clarity? This is the step to notice if I'm making progress or if I'm not. Sometimes it's not enough to just do our own self work. Sometimes we really do need to reach out to a professional. Maybe we need medical support, maybe we need a therapist. But if you're moving in the right direction. I'm feeling my feelings, I'm making some different decisions. We can start to grow from that place of self-awareness to what I would call a vibrant life. That's what I'm excited about living myself now, is I'm not giving energy to everybody else. I'm deciding first what I have and what I want to invest it in. And that is moving me in the direction I need to go in.

Ellen Mailhot:

Like you said, it sounds simple it is, but it's not easy and it needs to be repeated over and over and over again until it becomes,,habit and a set of neural pathways. And I love how it lines up with so many other experts out there.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yeah.

Ellen Mailhot:

You think, oh, there's a new thing. Now I have to learn a new method. It's like. Well, no, it's similar to these other things. It's worded a little differently. There might be a different nber of steps, but the concepts of paying attention, not judging yourself, practicing something, practicing small steps, are not really all that different. And I like that because I know I, I practiced it in other formats, or there's this expert that says this way or whatever. But it just kind of reinforces this is really a solid to approach helping yourself, and we should be helping ourselves. Use the notice, decide practice tool for any time you're learning something that that's for yourself like this.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

It was so fun I went to see Gabby Bernstein in Boston and all around me everybody's having ahas, and I think we're lucky to be alive in this time.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yes.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Where there is so much support and it does feel like this rising. Having a chance to go through these four steps, what is the purpose she would say it is to get back to healthy self? And I would call it aligned energy. And so she uses words for this healthy self but maybe your word is peace, or your word is enthusiasm. I like her eight words, and I like the idea of not making everything equal, but to choose one priority- to make something first. Her eight words are calm, curious, clear compassionate, confident, courageous, creative and connected. When I went through this list of eight, I started to notice when I'm not in aligned energy, it's not best for me to try to have a relationship with somebody who sucks the life out of me. If I'm not in the aligned energy that I need to be in to have those hard conversations. I've had to put some boundaries. The boundary was if we could have a text conversation without arguing, then I would move over to a phone call. If we could have a phone conversation where we just honored the light in each other, right? There was no disrespect, then I would do an in-person visit. It took a while for me to, to move through those three stages. I noticed, for me, I had to have calmness in my body in order to move forward.

Ellen Mailhot:

They're not meant to be in order

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

no, they're really meant for you to discover

Ellen Mailhot:

which ones are the ones where you need to either notice or work

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and really where do you need to start?

Ellen Mailhot:

For me the ones that jump out to me are calm and courage, it's just interesting, like creativity to me would be kind of a bonus. So it, it's interesting.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And knowing you the way I know you, it would probably be a sign that you were very depleted. If you lost your curiosity. You didn't want to read anything, you didn't have any good questions.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And I wouldn't say I've lived most of my life in a very curious way. That's one of my, later of the eight, that's probably my sixth, seventh, or eighth.

Ellen Mailhot:

So interesting.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

For me it's an aligning energy. So calmness. If you notice that it's really hard for you to do life, when you're not centered and grounded, that's when you want to use your four step process of, I'm feeling agitated. I can't find any calmness.

Ellen Mailhot:

I'm not calm. Some people become more focused when they're not calm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Some people love a life with no calmness.

Ellen Mailhot:

I can't function if I'm not calm Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I went to a mastermind recently and we were talking about this where some people just love a good argument and some people really get, overwhelmed by those.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah, it's interesting not liking to be in arguments doesn't mean you want to be in an echo chamber either, right? I don't need you to agree with me, but agitated, verbal sparring thing or screaming at each other. That's not.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

That energy

Ellen Mailhot:

That's

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

not help you.

Ellen Mailhot:

people love that, right?

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Love it, love it, love it. Yep. And so some people are noticing, okay, healthy self looks first, like calmness. Even in a challenging circstance and other people are saying That might be seventh or eighth for me, not super important. The next one is curiosity, and I do think this is something that you naturally come with. Questions are easy for you. You're able to hold nuance. Do you feel like curiosity might be something that's important to you when you're in aligned energy?

Ellen Mailhot:

high. Yeah. And, and being a, you know, w on the working genius. I know that's, that's another new topic, but I can't help but ask questions. And I don't always think of it as being curious. I have this tendency in my six energy on the Enneagram to kind of poke holes. Like, what about this? What about that? Like, because I have these fears, I want to make sure everything's all set. Whereas, you know, I know some people bristle at that. But that calms me down. It as a just curiosity is kind of cool because it makes it feel a little bit better

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Well,

Ellen Mailhot:

than, oh, you're just seeing all the terrible things that can happen. It's like, no, I'm curious if we've planned for.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

well, exactly, and really interesting that. You can actually get so depleted, so exhausted, you're no longer curious.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

in a relationship where you're not noticing any curiosity or a project and you just don't even have the energy to think through the questions, and so that might be for you. A way to notice I might have moved out of alignment. I'm not even curious about this anymore.

Ellen Mailhot:

it's neat. So if you can identify the two or three that kind of float to the top for you, they can then be signals to you that you're out of alignment. I like that a lot. That's really, that's neat.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And then, then it's so helpful. And the third one, clarity is do you notice when you are in aligned energy, you kind of see situations and emotions with a clear, unbiased perspective? I think of the time you and I went to see Ian Cron and he is an Enneagram four and he said he loves his Enneagram five friend because Enneagram five friend can look at a situation without emotions, probably has a lot of clarity.

Ellen Mailhot:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Is that important to you? Again, this would be down the bottom for me.

Ellen Mailhot:

It's funny, I think these first three are probably my highest

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Interesting.

Ellen Mailhot:

at them kind of on the surface. Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yeah.

Ellen Mailhot:

Of course, you look at these kind of lists, you're like, oh, I want all of

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I want all of them.

Ellen Mailhot:

But those three, I feel like, yeah, they're probably higher for me.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And they're a lot lower for me, and that's why I love being able to do things in partnership with you because I think it gives a balance to what we share. The the next one is compassion. And for me, this is incredibly important. When I find myself without compassion, I.

Ellen Mailhot:

Hmm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

That means I've gone so past my boundaries and now I'm exhausted. I'm depleted, I'm overwhelmed. I'm frustrated and resentful, and so compassion. I love how Jesus says it. Love your neighbor as yourself.

Ellen Mailhot:

mm

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

don't have compassion and empathy for myself, I truly don't have it for others.

Ellen Mailhot:

It's like the air mask on the plane. You really need to put it on

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

You do need to put on yourself, even though as a mom you think that's not best. It's alright. Confidence. This is something I'm growing in. I wouldn't say it speaks directly to my aligned energy. It's probably in the middle. When I'm, in highly aligned energy, I probably am more confident than when I start getting tired or depleted. And then courage is the willingness to take risks and face challenges head on. Also, not a natural part of who I am,

Ellen Mailhot:

for me. Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and I found it so interesting. I raised children where this confidence, courage was kind of a lead indicator of their aligned energy

Ellen Mailhot:

Hmm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and then creativity. Yeah.

Ellen Mailhot:

Well, I feel like these last three compassion, confidence, and courage are probably pretty low I wish I had more of naturally, but I have to, what's that expression? You know, act brave and then you'll feel brave. I'm like,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Well.

Ellen Mailhot:

come until you pretend you're, you're brave. That's kind of me.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And well, and I think part of confidence that I've learned from some of the coaches is it comes with our experience and our practice. So for instance, when we started working together, neither one of us knew how to use Canva. Now you've done so many hundreds of hours in it, you're probably confident,

Ellen Mailhot:

Well, on certain parts of

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

right? But the parts that you are,

Ellen Mailhot:

The parts. I know, I know well, but I certainly don't. Yeah,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and so part of,

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

yeah, so part of confidence sometimes comes with the reps.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yes. And and for me, confidence goes along with competence. Like some people kind of like have confidence whether they're competent or not.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yeah,

Ellen Mailhot:

And I have confidence when I'm I feel I'm competent enough. And I often don't'cause I self judge

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and that's where there's this amazing overlap, right? Books like Lean In can tell us, Hey, nothing's gone wrong. You're a woman. And in general, we get confident at the like 90 to a hundred percent accuracy rate.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And maybe we could just, you know, try something. But confidence is another one of that self-energy where when you're aligned, you are, you've got enough thinking energy to think through the hard problems. You've got enough physical energy to get out there and do it. And then the last two, the creativity and the connectedness, I would say I spent most of my life thinking I wasn't creative. And then I read, the artist's way.

Ellen Mailhot:

Mm,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Discovered Julie Cameron's book that all people are creative. And I would say it's because we're made in the image of the creator. And it's the ability to express yourself and find new solutions to problems. It's not necessarily painting and doing pottery

Ellen Mailhot:

which is what most people think of. They think music or art and which is, you know, obviously creative, but there's so many ways to be creative.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

many ways. And so maybe it is how you design a room. Maybe it is the outfit you put on. Maybe it is a food you make. And then the last one, connectedness, a sense of belonging, connecting to yourself and to others in the world. And so for me, finding this list of eight was so helpful because I began to recognize, okay, when I'm in aligned energy, I'll know it. Because first there's a calm connectedness to how I think and feel and do life.

Ellen Mailhot:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And you're noticing, okay, there's some curiosity and some clarity with your calmness. And so we're all gonna do this differently. But if we can discover what aligned energy looks like to us. It is incredibly helpful. Internal Family Systems is working with the idea that there's these parts of us. So there's this true self, right? You're compassionate and clear and confident, and maybe other words, peaceful, enthusiastic, whatever it is that you know you are. And then life happens and you start thinking some thoughts and feeling some feelings and doing some things. And now you're out of alignment. She would say there's three different protective parts. Your managers, your firefighters, and your exiles. I'm not gonna go deep into that because I think the book is necessary to and perhaps even work with somebody who does internal family systems. But what I thought was amazing is if you can find your Enneagram path, the words that describe what happened when you're in stress and in health will very much align with the managers and firefighters, which are the behaviors that you use in order to protect yourself. She says managers are sort of the first layer of defense. They're protecting you from the threat. And firefighters move it up a notch. And now you're trying to suppress pain. And there's so many addictive behaviors we use to avoid pain, right? I'm an Enneagram 2. When I'm healthy and aligned, I'm calm and I'm connected, I'm courageous, and then life happens. Someone says something, something happens. I don't get enough sleep, I get sick, and I move out of alignment. Now I have these paths. I can go to the unhealthy side of one and three and eight and four, and some paths I go on a lot and some paths I hardly ever go on. And some of these paths end up being not healthy. The manager, I like the word that she uses become more. Overly something.

Ellen Mailhot:

Yes.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

So when you're leaning into this behavior, it's past where it's helpful. You become kind of judgmental or perfectionistic or even overly organized.

Ellen Mailhot:

everything's gonna be fine because I have this organized spreadsheet. Well, there's humans involved. It's not gonna actually go by your spreadsheet. I think that when you take it to the level of thinking it's gonna to manage everything it's a little unhealthy, right You can't manage other people. You can't control other people. And, that's interesting.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I think that's a really good example. My Enneagram two goes to one and I become overly organized. This was the tool I used when life became too much in college. I had a caboodle, which is where all of my makeup was organized, and I had to work and go to college and I would get overwhelmed and I didn't know that. Because I didn't pay attention to my own life. I would call out of work and I would clean my caboodle. So every single, makeup, perfectly organized, overly organized, not in a healthy way. It moved me back into an aligned energy, this little tool of being overly organized. Sometimes people use judgment and sometimes we become perfectionistic, but it's all to protect us.

Ellen Mailhot:

people do that with cleaning, right?

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

All kinds of things. Yep.

Ellen Mailhot:

Like there's so many different ways.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

So the manager is trying to keep things under control with an overthinking, not sleeping at night.'cause you're making lists in your head a Google sheet that you can't let go and just actually go do the action.

Ellen Mailhot:

So the, the goal would be to pause and say, if I'm rinating on this spreadsheet, or cleaning out my caboodle or whatever, is, what is that telling me?

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yeah,

Ellen Mailhot:

the steps to say, oh, there's something that overwhelmed me, or there's something. And then kind of backing it up a little bit to peel back the layers and,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

absolutely.

Ellen Mailhot:

see that as a manager. Like even though it feels really good, like it feels so calming to do that. that cleaning or the

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yep.

Ellen Mailhot:

it might be a red flag that there's something you're escaping from or something that your yourself is protecting yourself from.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Right.

Ellen Mailhot:

Was the movie Inside Out based on internal family systems? Do you know?

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

dunno. But I love that it does show you feeling so clearly.

Ellen Mailhot:

Well, and, and then just that one feeling was trying to cover up the other one, like with the first movie with Joy, you know, like just pretending nothing was sad and sadness was required to save the day. Like you, she actually needed the sadness. And, and that is so what we do though, right, we don't want to feel the anger or the sadness, so we just kind of shove'em aside. I thought that movie was just brilliant

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

The Enneagram is one of the gifts that we have. For some people, joy is their leading energy, right? It is how they get through life and other people it's. Suppressing other things to not like all of it is needed and,

Ellen Mailhot:

We need all of it.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and even when you look at those eight words, like I think in a really healthy human is going to be courageous and creative and connected and all of that, but not all equally and not all first. So

Ellen Mailhot:

at the same time.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

right. And you're going to be in times of stress. The manager is almost like that red flag, Hey, are you noticing you're moving over to here? You're coping with some stress.

Ellen Mailhot:

go back to the noticing

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Go back to the notice

Ellen Mailhot:

noticing these things can take over.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and then when they take over, you end up with what she calls the firefighters. And that's where we end up getting to an extreme. You might have addiction, self-harm, rage. So rage is so different from anger. Anger is saying there's a boundary and we crossed it. Rage lost the value of the light in me and the light in you, right? So you're driving and you're angry'cause they cut you off. But you're so past capacity now you're en rage and you wanted to run them over.

Ellen Mailhot:

The way you worded this'cause I find the term firefighter confusing because I think of firefighters as a really good thing, right? We need them to rescue us

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And that's what they're doing.

Ellen Mailhot:

Save our lives.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yep.

Ellen Mailhot:

but in this situation, these firefighters are actually, can, go to the extreme and hurt you in their effort to save you. Which is not what a real firefighter does. Right.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Right.

Ellen Mailhot:

I didn't really understand that. I only knew a little bit about,,family systems, but this helped clarify what,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

They are trying to suppress your pain,

Ellen Mailhot:

Yes.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

what we do without noticing and without having some clarity is we suppress our pain in a way that's destructive. If we can notice in advance, we don't need to get all the way to the exile, which is now holding where your traa and all of that is. And so, you know, some people may look back on their life and say, you know what, yeah, that overworking got me through that season where I just couldn't handle the people in my house.

Ellen Mailhot:

yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

But here's the self-destructive way that I dealt with that circstance. Because often we haven't sat down and noticed, Hey, I'm really tired.

Ellen Mailhot:

Mm-hmm.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I. I'm tired emotionally. I'm tired physically. This world right now is a lot to walk through

Ellen Mailhot:

Yeah.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

I haven't noticed it, and I definitely didn't notice without judgment. I've been kind of mean to myself and I haven't been curious, why am I doing this? This path, it does show me, hey, sometimes when it all feels too much, I'm gonna go reach for ice cream instead of going for a walking, having water. Okay. Is that a manager? Is it a firefighter? It doesn't matter. I'm using a tool to try to help myself because I've moved out of alignment

Ellen Mailhot:

tool, the halt tool,

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yeah.

Ellen Mailhot:

Hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Wouldn't that be nice to teach all children? Just need to eat something and I love how it pause.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yes.

Ellen Mailhot:

powerful because can make you aware. Is there a manager or firefighter taking over here? The urge to drink or eat or shop or, you know, whatever your, your escape thing is. Pausing to just see what's underneath it I feel like hall oversimplifies it, right? Angry and lonelier. Two emotions.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

right,

Ellen Mailhot:

of other You could be grieving.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Yeah.

Ellen Mailhot:

just don't, you, you know, someone told you you should be over the death

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

Right.

Ellen Mailhot:

By now. So, you suppress it. Actually grief is very personal and very lifelong.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

And feelings are good for us. Like that's what Inside Out helps us see. They're all for us. If we use this practice of noticing without judgment, connecting, checking in on repeat, little tiny, three to five minutes a day. Noticing what for you the aligned self looks like, whether it's curious, clear, compassionate, confident, courageous, creative, connected. Find your words. I know one of your important words is peace, your aligned energy is peace. I know when I've lost my enthusiasm, I've moved out of alignment. And to then be able to say, okay, there's this part of me, this inner child, this inner 10-year-old, this inner 12-year-old who did the very best she could as a manager, as a firefighter, if I can notice that behavior, I can then prevent myself from going down this path that doesn't serve me. I don't think anybody can do this alone. It's almost impossible to do this work alone. That's why we created a community. We think coming together once a week to say your aligned energy is absolutely the most important part of all of life.

Ellen Mailhot:

And the group coaching is so great'cause you hear other people's stories and even if it's, you know, a different version of your story, you hear we're all going through stuff and there's just so many different ways of viewing it and different ways of processing it. And these tools are amazing. There's so many variations of them. You pick, and choose the tools and practice them. Then hearing how people get through it. It's really neat.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

That's why we wanted to chat today. We want to invite you to join us. We think that what we're doing on repeat is helping both of us become healthy, aligned people who are able then to take our joy and our love and our peace and bring it to the world. If you'd like to hear more, you can head over to kellytibbitts.com Ellen, thank you for being here. Thank you for all the wisdom you've passed on to me through the years and for helping me create this podcast today,

Ellen Mailhot:

Thank you. It was fun to be here.

Kelly Tibbitts-Life Coach:

and I hope that our conversation today truly helps you to live a vibrant life.

Thank you for joining the Live A Vibrant Life podcast. I hope our time together encourage you and will equip you with the tools you need to move into the vibrant life you desire. I'm here to help you live a brave, creative, purpose-filled life. And if you'd like to learn more. You can follow me on Instagram or Facebook, Kelly tibbits life coach, or visit my website kelly tibbits.com. I look forward to connecting again soon.

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Kelly Tibbitts

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